The 35-12 scoreline was damning. Pride dented, humiliation pending, they rallied superbly after the break, chasing the game for all it was worth, wing Francisco Leonelli completing his second hat-trick in a month, but they had too much ground to make up.

Despite their second-half revival, it was hardly the tonic Saracens wanted the week before they take on Munster in the Heineken Cup semi-final, a tournament they have to win if they are to play in Europe's premier competition next season.

"That was close to the most embarrassing 40 minutes I've ever been involved in," said Alan Gaffney, Saracens' veteran director of rugby.

For all the hosts' early failings, few teams would have lived with Wasps on yesterday's first-half form. They had their four-try bonus point in the bag by the 21st minute, the fastest by any side this season. There was pace, intelligence and venom in their play until the toll of their third game in eight days caught up with them. Fourteen Premiership points in that period will soothe those aching limbs.

This was Wasps' eighth successive win in the Premiership, an irresistible run of form that has lifted them from the depths of the league into prime play-off position. They have nudged Harlequins out of third position on points difference, and have a game in hand.

The pace, energy and ambition of their game brought its rewards. Fly-half Cipriani taunted Saracens with his brazen attacking skills, taking the ball forward, drawing defenders and off-loading at the key moment. He's a joy to watch in this form. His long cross-kick for Paul Sackey's bonus-point try showed that he is alert to every possibility.

New England manager Martin Johnson had his lieutenants, John Wells and Graham Rowntree, in the crowd of 13,231. Even those gnarled exponents of the dark forward arts would have appreciated the edge and elan of Wasps' Cipriani-inspired display.

It surely won't be long before his team-mate, Dominic Waldouck, is following him into the England team. The 20-year-old centre was sharp and shrewd. Both of his first-half tries came courtesy of a Cipriani pass.

The game began at a fair old lick, with four tries in the opening 12 minutes, Raphael Ibanez scampering over for Wasps, followed by a poacher's touchdown from Tom Voyce. Waldouck was also on the scoresheet.

It was no portent of things to come that Saracens actually opened the scoring, Leonelli getting his first in the third minute.

Saracens might easily have crumbled. The arrival of prop Cobus Visagie, though, gave them purchase in the scrum, and captain and scrum-half Neil de Kock galvanised his men after the break, though Wasps' scrum-half Eoin Reddan darted over from 40 metres to extend the visitors' half-time lead.

Leonelli claimed his hat-trick in the 53rd minute. Wasps' back-row forward James Haskell went to the sin-bin four minutes later, triggering a sequence of play in which the thought of an improbable Saracens victory actually began to take shape.

Wasps were fortunate that Sackey did not follow Haskell into the sin-bin for what looked to be a deliberate knock-on. From the scrum, Saracens full-back Richard Haughton was put over.

When De Kock somehow shrugged clear of a tackle to dart to the line in the 71st minute, all hearts began to beat that bit faster.